Overview
- The European Space Agency’s Euclid mission has increased the sample of known quasars seen within roughly 800 million years after the Big Bang from nine to 21, expanding the population available for study.
- Euclid identified quasars as early as about 670 million years after the Big Bang, breaking previous redshift records and extending the observational window on black‑hole growth.
- Follow‑up submillimeter observations with NOEMA of Euclid target EUCL J125308.55+705432.3 found intense star formation above 250 solar masses per year and a galaxy mass near ten billion solar masses with large dust and gas reservoirs.
- The discoveries used Euclid’s visible and near‑infrared imaging plus machine learning to pick candidates and were published in the peer‑reviewed journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
- The ongoing six‑year Euclid survey is expected to uncover many more similar, UV‑faint quasars, which will guide targeted multiwavelength follow‑up and enable population studies of early galaxy and black‑hole co‑evolution.